I'm shamelessly using the characters below from the creative mind of JE.

Jenny (JenRar) I'm also shamelessly using your skills as a beta to turn my jumbled mess into a true story – thank you.

Chapter 13 - Compromise

"Hang on," Tank's voice came over the phone. "You need to say that again, because there's no way I heard it right over the noise from the guys in the hall."

"Why are the men noisy?" I couldn't help but ask. The office floor rarely got loud when I was there, so I assumed something unusual had happened.

"Ella just brought out some kind of chocolate cake with a cream filling, and they are informing her – loudly – of how much they approve," he said, with no inflection of joking in his voice.

I paused, trying to weigh the merits of flat out asking if she was really cooking unhealthy food for the men anytime I was away from the office, but I decided to let it go, figuring if she was doing it, they obviously approved and wouldn't turn her in for fear of her stopping.

I let what I hoped was his attempt at a joke slide and repeated my original comment, since it was the purpose of my call. "I said to cancel the core team meeting at 1400 hours, because I won't be there."

"Yeah, I got that," he replied, "but I thought you gave a reason of why you wouldn't be there, and that's what confused me."

"I'm at the mall with Stephanie," I informed him.

"Is she okay?" he followed up, sounding concerned. When did Tank turn into the mother hen of RangeMan?

"She's fine," I assured him.

"Then why are you there?" he wondered aloud, as though I were challenging his opinion of how the world worked.

I paused, unsure of how to answer his question, and not convinced I even wanted to try, but Tank interrupted my musing to ask, "Did you just sigh? When did you start sighing?"

"We can discuss this more on the mats in the morning," I threatened.

"Damn, you're moody," he replied, while laughing at my expense. "I'll call the guys and let them know that you can't meet in a couple hours because you're busy carrying Stephanie's bags through the mall."

Was that what I was doing here? Had I somehow become one of those emasculated men that hooked up with a woman, and then totally forgot who they were and just followed around their wife like a dog waiting for a bone to be thrown his way?

"Ranger," Tank spoke in his old Army voice. "You still with me, man?"

"I'm here. I was just…" Damn, that was close. I'd almost told him what I was thinking, which would have been a huge mistake. The new, joking Tank wasn't somebody I wanted to admit to that I wondered if being with Stephanie had changed who I was.

"Look, I'm giving you shit because it's a lot easier than being level with you and admitting that most of us have seen the two of you together and we're jealous as hell. I think it's cool to see you manning up and doing what you should have done a couple of years ago, and especially with everything she's going through, you've been nothing but solid since you two got together. The guys have been talking, and seeing you two is downright inspirational. Except for Santos, I think most of them are wishing they were in your shoes right now," Tank admitted, putting my mind at ease a little more.

"What's doing with Santos?" I couldn't help but wonder.

"He sees the possibility of everyone else settling down as an influx in women needing his skill set in one night stands, so he's happy to be the lone swinger left at RangeMan, because the size of his buffet is about to increase." Tank had most likely quoted my cousin for that, because it sounded exactly like something he'd say.

"You looking for a woman, too?" I couldn't help but pry a little while Stephanie was in the dressing room.

Tank laughed long and deep over my question. "Hell, man. I've been looking, but not everybody is as lucky as you are in finding the perfect woman basically delivered to you in a diner."

"Hey, Carlos," I heard Stephanie call out to me, so I moved to the entrance of the dressing room in the ladies section and saw her step out in a pale blue dress that was a cross between stylish and sexy with classy elegance. "I like this, but can't think of a single reason why I'd need it," she admitted, looking to me for advice.

"Get the dress, Babe," I told her, loving how she looked in it and running through different places I could take her that would need that exact look.

"But why?" she pushed, never afraid to stand her ground with me.

I raised an eyebrow, not willing to tell her what I was thinking. She put her hands on her hips and spun around, only pretending to be angry that I wasn't answering her question. In truth, I could see the gleam in her eye that told me she loved me teasing her like that.

"So where is she going to wear the dress, Carlos?" I heard a deep voice ask in my ear.

"Maybe to your funeral, if you don't stop putting your nose in where it doesn't belong," I bit back at my second-in-command.

"Easy, man. You're the one that called me," he laughed at my expense. "I had to assume since you didn't hang up that whatever was being said was for my benefit, as well."

"Just cancel the meeting and reschedule for tomorrow before the morning briefing," I advised, and then I hung up.

I turned to look anywhere but at the dressing room door, and a few more dresses caught my eye, so I stepped away and picked out some things I wanted to see on Stephanie. When I got tired of waiting for her to step out again, I lifted my phone and sent her a text.

Come to the dressing room door.

It took a few minutes, but she appeared in a skirt and some kind of complicated wrap around shirt that could easily work in a board room or a bar for happy hour.

"Nice," I complimented, but she wrinkled her nose, as though she wasn't convinced.

"Here." I handed the hangers to her. "Try these on."

Her eyebrows rose.

I guessed she was questioning why I was being so bossy, so I softened it slightly and added, "Please."

That earned me an eye roll, but she turned around and disappeared once more into the curtains. Time passed slowly, but I slipped into my zone with no effort at all and waited. When the door to her dressing room opened again, I spun around and saw her come to me in the long, fitted black dress I'd given her. I felt my mouth go dry as she glided toward me, the slit up one side giving me a peek-a-boo glance of her upper thigh with every step and the cut at the front giving me just the top of her rounded breasts, without turning the dress into something cheap and slutty.

She turned when she got to the doorway and showed me the back, which had a few criss-cross straps and was low cut enough to give me her entire back as a teaser of what the rest of the material was hiding.

"Do you like it?" she asked after completing her spin for my benefit.

I raised an eyebrow at her, and then looked down at the front of my pants to draw her attention there, as well, so she could see exactly how much I liked the look of her in that dress. When I glanced back up, her face was a lovely shade of pink, and I nodded yes, that I did like the dress.

"That one is coming home with us, too," I advised her.

The smile fell from her face, and she said, "No, Carlos, it can't. This dress is nearly six hundred dollars. There's no way I can afford to put that much into a formal dress."

"You're not," I corrected her. "I picked it out, and I'm buying it, but that dress is coming home with us, Babe," I informed her, unwilling to bend on this point.

Her bottom lip went between her teeth, and I watched her worry over something, so I took a step closer and asked what was wrong.

"You can't buy me clothes," she said without much conviction.

"Of course I can," I replied, unable to see the problem.

"I'm not with you for your money," she added.

"I know that. If anything, I think you'd be happier if I didn't have it," I agreed with her. "You always seem a little uncomfortable about me giving you things, but I want to do this, and I hope you'll see that giving you things like this makes me happy."

"So if I let you buy this dress, it will make you happy?" she turned her rephrasing of my comment into a question.

I gave her a single head nod and explained, "Yes, because I know exactly where you can wear this dress, and the idea of planning for that night makes me very…happy."

Stephanie glanced down at the now pronounced bulge behind my zipper and smiled. "Yes, I can see your joy rising up now." And with that, she spun around and disappeared behind the door once more.

Four hours later, after working our way through three department stores, two specialty clothiers, and Victoria's Secret, we were loading her bags into the back of the Cayenne.

"Anywhere else you want to go?" I asked, willing to take her anywhere.

She blew a curl away from her face and shook her head no. "I'm out of money to spend; I think it would be best if we just went home."

"You know the money isn't an object," I reminded her, knowing that even if she tried, with her frugal ways, she'd struggle to spend all the money I had put away.

"And you know it is to me," she replied in return. This was clearly an area we didn't see eye to eye on, so I let it go and pushed back the strand of hair that had fallen once more across her face.

I decided to push my luck and asked, "As long as we're talking about money, what would it take to convince you to let me get you car?"

"I have a car," she replied, as though that were the right word for the 1996 Dodge Spirit she was currently motoring around in.

"You don't have a car," I corrected her. "You have a motor strapped to a thin layer of metal that sprays toxic fumes when you drive around."

"That trail of toxic fumes gets me from where I am to where I need to be. I don't need you to buy me a new car," she firmly disagreed.

Clearly trying to reason with her wasn't going to get her to give in, so I tried a different approach. "What would it take for you to be open to the discussion of us jointly upgrading your car to something safer?"

"My car is safe. It isn't going to instantly combust," she disagreed with a little more volume than before. "There may be smoke, but I can assure you, there is no fire."

I didn't think it was the right time to point out that the expression using those two words definitely disagreed with her stance on the subject, but I wisely let it go. "That car is one fast take off away from choking out and leaving you stranded. If that happens on the wrong side of town, or at night, then you are in a potentially dangerous situation. There is a great deal of rust on the under carriage, which makes planting a reliable GPS tracker more difficult, and the pads on the brakes are virtually non-existent. It's not safe."

"You can't buy me a car," she repeated, as though the explanation that accompanied that sentence would become self-evident if she said it loud enough.

"Why not?" I needed to understand if we were ever going to move forward on this subject.

"Because I don't want to be one of those women," she said almost as a stage whisper.

"What women?" I asked, feeling my patience run out. Why couldn't she just let me buy the car and be done with it?

"Forget about me for a minute," she abruptly spoke up. "What do you think of the Police Chief's new wife?"

Years of maintaining a blank face couldn't mask my reaction when she brought up the thirty-one-year-old wife of the sixty-one-year-old chief of police. I'd run a background check on her after their engagement was announced to see if there was any information that might prove useful in the future and found out that his bride-to-be still had a male friend on the side that even the four carat diamond on her finger didn't motivate her to give up. She'd upgraded her car, her style of dress, and her home address, but her behavior didn't seem to be impacted by the fact she was getting married.

Stephanie was watching me with an expression probably much like a hawk has before it swoops down and grabs its prey, so I knew she was expecting an answer.

"I don't believe the chief of police married for love, if that's what you're asking."

"Oh, he's marrying her because she's young and probably puts out as much as he can handle. But why is she marrying him?" Stephanie pushed.

"I have to assume he either has the ability to help her or someone she loves because of his position in law enforcement," I conceded.

"No, he's in a position to buy her all the things she wants, to give her a life where she never has to work, and he's gone so much at work, she doesn't have to see him all that often," she explained, as though the information were a direct quote from the chief's wife.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, always interested in whatever Stephanie wanted to share with me, but a little confused abut what this had to do with me buying her a car.

"Because I refuse to be seen as the chief's wife," she said, confusing me further.

I tried to make the connection, but in the end, I had to ask for help. "Explain."

Steph's eyebrows shot up, letting me know that I probably hadn't asked so much as I had demanded, but I hoped she understood my intent was nicer than my delivery.

"I was living paycheck to paycheck, driving cars that barely ran, mooching off my parents for groceries some months, and barely keeping myself afloat," she began, speaking much quieter, causing me to step closer to hear her.

"Then you come back from a mission, and within forty-eight hours, the two of us are dating, and a week later, I'm living in your apartment. With what's in the back of the Cayenne, I'll be dressing much better, and because of my hearing, I think everyone knows I'm not working. The only thing different between the chief's wife and me is that she has a diamond on her finger and a new car."

I started to object, but she held her hand up to stop me. "I know that isn't the way it is, but it's how it would look. You may not care about what people think of you, and I'm trying to be the same way, but I've got the 'Burg already watching my every step. I can't take a car from you, or it will just provide them with more and more evidence to fuel their impression that I'm nothing but a gold digger."

Damn, how do I fight the impression of the 'Burg? "You are wrong about something," I began, hoping I wasn't about make things worse. "I do care what people think of me. I've spent a great deal of time working on my image so that all I have to do is walk into a room and people have certain expectations of why I'm there and how I expect them to treat me. So, I get the point about you not wanting to come off as only being with me for my money."

She relaxed, and her eyes crinkled slightly at the edges, making me think she was trying to hold back a smile. I almost hated to keep going and take that away from her, but this point was too important to let go.

"But I don't live my life worried about the impression I'm giving off, either. I have rules for how I interact with people, but if there is something I want, then to hell with the rules. And there is one major difference between you and the chief's wife that I think totally negates your point."

"What's that?" She seemed more curious than upset, so I decided to level with her.

"I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen them in public together since they began dating, and even then, there was no emotion, no love visible between them. You and I have been seen together enough to keep the gossips busy, and I think if we are even in the same room together, everybody around us is aware of how we feel. And I've gotten plenty of complaints about how damn happy we both seem when we're actually side by side, so I think there isn't a bat's chance in hell that someone will think we are together for any reason other than love." I watched her carefully as I spoke to gauge any kind of reaction.

Her head leaned to the side slightly, and she drew her lips into her mouth, before straightening up and saying, "Isn't there some sort of middle ground here?"

I liked the idea of compromising with her on the issue. It might not be what I wanted, but if it could be a step in the right direction, I might be willing to let it go. "What do you have in mind?"

"I don't want a fancy new car, and you don't want me driving the beat up old car. Could we meet in the middle and go with a slightly used car that isn't too flashy to make us both happy?" she offered.

It wasn't what I wanted, but after the way she'd reacted when we started this discussion, it was a lot better than I thought I'd get for a while. "Can we pick it out together so that I can look it over first?" I asked.

"Only if I have the ability to veto your suggestion if it seems too flashy. I mean, just because we're together doesn't mean my ability to blow up things is going to disappear," she pointed out.

I knew I'd insure it for her, but she did have a point.

"Agreed," I told her, surprised when my answer caused her to smile and step close enough to put her arms around my waist.

I took her rare initiation of affection and stood there with her in my arms until I heard a car honk its horn, causing me to remember we were still standing in the damn mall parking lot. I needed to learn to pay better attention to my surroundings.

I leaned back enough to let her know I wanted her to look at me and asked, "Hungry?"

She grinned, which I took to be a yes, so I drove us to a little Italian bistro on the waterfront. It wasn't fancy, but it was far enough away from the 'Burg that I doubted we'd run into any of the people she still seemed to want to avoid.

When we sat down, she gave the menu a fast perusal, and then put it down, obviously having no trouble making up her mind what she wanted. I might give her grief about her eating habits, but it was damn refreshing to be with a woman that didn't constantly worry about what we was eating and pretending to be able to survive on child-like servings.

I watched her in the dimly lit restaurant and felt a longing to be alone with her. We'd been in the public eye for the better part of the day, and I wished we were alone so I could pull her across my lap and feed her myself, just to increase the connection between us.

While I was lost in thought, Stephanie must have been working her mind in a different direction, as she asked, "When we were talking in the parking lot, did you raise your voice, or get angry or frustrated with me?"

What a peculiar question. "No, I didn't raise my voice," I assured her. "And while I did get frustrated that you were shutting down my desire to help you get a different car, I wasn't angry at all. I may want things for you, but I'd never force them on you." I watched her process what I'd said, before asking, "Why do you ask?"

She shrugged and said, "When Joe and I used to try to talk about things that required a compromise, I think we were both so defensive and hell bent on getting our viewpoint acknowledged that we never really talked. We jumped right to the loud vocals that precede yelling."

I tried to keep my face neutral, instead of cringing when she compared something between us to what she used to have with Joe.

"But this afternoon, I didn't get defensive or start yelling at you, because I felt like you were listening to me and not preparing what you wanted to say in return while I was talking. I didn't know if I was right, or if the fact that I couldn't hear your tone meant that I just missed how you really felt," she explained.

I watched her take a drink from her newly filled glass of water and return it to the table, before I took her hand in mine and held it on top of the table. "You couldn't hear my words, but I'm convinced no one else in the world can read me as well as you can. You would have known if I was frustrated or angry."

She considered that for a while, and then stated, "I can't read you better than Tank."

I laughed at that statement. "I might have to disagree with that," I told her truthfully. "He knows me from years of working together, so he knows what I want and how I want it done in the office and on the street. But that is nowhere near the same thing as being able to read me outside of work."

"You have been a little on the closed off side," she said with a grin.

"Do you think I'm closed off?" I asked, feeling defensive and trying to hold it back.

Her fingers tightened around mine, as though sensing my concern and trying to console me before she could get her words up to the task. "I think you are more open now than I ever thought possible – at least with me. But my guess is the guys still think of you as pretty hidden."

"I hope so," I admitted. "You're the only one I want to open up to."

"Can I ask you something off the subject?" She seemed a little uncertain about whether or not she wanted to, so I squeezed her hand this time.

"Anything," I assured her.

"Do you think it would be safe for me to pick up the low level skips I used to go after?"

I waited, hoping she would say more, but that seemed to be all she was going to offer me at the moment.

"Yes, I think you can, but I think it would be a good idea for you to work with a real partner, too," I gave her my opinion and wondered where this was leading.

"I miss going out. I miss the search and reacting to the unknown of what will happen when the door opens, but I don't want to be foolish and embarrass myself, either," she admitted, sounding uncertain about what to do.

I brought my free hand up to trace the tops of her fingers with mine. "How do you feel about taking on a RangeMan partner?" I asked, hoping I wasn't pushing her too much.

She made a face of indecision, but not irritation, which relieved me. "I guess it would depend on who it is. Most of the guys are already teamed up with somebody, so I don't want to break them up."

I had already thought about this and had an idea, but I didn't know how she'd feel about my suggestion. "Well, Bobby and Lester are at their six-month mark, so I would usually break them up to work with someone new," I offered, figuring Bobby would make a great partner for her, because he would be right there if something went wrong to take care of her.

"No," she said, shooting it down completely. "I don't think I should work with anyone on the core team. Plus, if it were Bobby, I'd feel like the only reason he was with me would be to watch over my health. It wouldn't be the same as having a partner. I'd have a keeper."

Damn, her instincts were making this harder than I'd hoped.

"Hector and Brett both do installs for half of their time with RangeMan, so they don't have a regular partner; they rotate wherever there is a need. Since you aren't talking about full-time field work, either of them could back you up whenever you wanted to go out, but you might have to go on a service call with them from time to time," I offered, coming up with this idea as I said it.

She was silent for a while, truly thinking it over, which pleased me. She wasn't just dismissing it, which made me think Brett was about to be the most envied man at RangeMan.

"I think I'd like Hector to work with me," she replied, surprising me to the point I couldn't cover it up.

"Really?" I asked, not able to understand why she'd chosen him.

"Yes." As she spoke now, her eyes grew in their passion, and I knew she had hooked herself on the idea. "He helped pull the equipment together for me when I first lost my hearing, he is really effective in picking up skips because his appearance all but scares them into the car, and I think he'll watch over me without picking on me for my mishaps."

"All that is true," I agreed, before pointing out what I thought was the obvious objection to partnering them together, "but he can't speak English. You won't be able to read his lips."

"True, but he knows sign language, so we can talk with our hands and not be bound by English or Spanish," she pointed out, perfectly pleased with her solution.

I didn't have a ground to stand on, so I nodded my assent and said, "Tomorrow morning, I'll talk to Hector to see how he feels about it. If he's up for it, then it looks like you have a new partner."

She was grinning from ear to ear, obviously excited about the idea of working outside again, and I found myself hoping Hector would agree to look out for her. I knew he was uniquely qualified, but I wondered if he would agree. Regardless, I knew I was willing to do whatever was necessary to keep that look of excitement on her face.

"Then we have something to celebrate," she said softly, pulling her hand from the table and resting it high on my thigh.

I dropped my gaze to her hand, and then looked back up at her sexy smile. Every day, she was reclaiming more and more of her independence, and with that came a confidence that told me she was going to be all right.

I didn't know if the details were ironed out enough to truly celebrate, but when she started squeezing my leg and rubbing more to the inside of my thigh, I decided I'd be glad to mark this occasion any way she wanted. And from the expression on her face and the dark hue of her eyes, the way she wanted to celebrate was going to take most of the night.